Information destination

Information is everywhere. For your customers, determining what is of value and what might be inaccurate or suspect can be a daunting prospect. And herein lies our opportunity. What better place than the local IGC where you bought your plants to get your information on how to help them thrive? Our customers’ success is our success, so it follows that we have a vested interest in helping our guests have a joyful experience with their plants. This will ensure that they keep up the gardening habit and keep coming back.

So, with an abundance of plant care info on the internet, how can we ensure that our customers recognize us as the experts? That’s the question I hope to help you navigate with a five-part strategy for becoming your customers’ go-to guru.

1) Take stock of your resources. What kinds of resources do you have available for your customers? Resources can include knowledgeable staff, printed or printable care guides, a blog, product signs, videos, social media posts, classes and more. Make a list of all the different resources you have or are interested in developing to understand what you’re working with clearly.

2) Diversify your resources. People learn in different ways. Some are visual, others prefer reading and others need interaction with a live human being to really understand and feel comfortable with what they are learning. It’s important to have different ways your guests can access your information, so try mixing in a few different delivery modes.

That said, it’s equally important to determine what you are able and willing to keep up with regularly. Don’t start a blog if you don’t think it’s something you can post consistently. Don’t give out a plant care email address unless you have a knowledgeable team member able to keep up with the inbox. If you rely on expert and knowledgeable staff to help your customers, make sure you are able and willing to invest in team training and continuing education to make sure they really are experts. You don’t have to be everything to everyone, but the more ways you can connect to people, the more people you will reach.

3) Organize your resources. I try to spend one shift a month as a cashier to stay current with how things are flowing at our checkout. I love these shifts because I always come away with ideas to streamline and make things better for our customers and staff.

For example, on one shift, I was trying to explain to a guest buying a mango tree all of the different resources we had to help them be successful. Our online mango resources include a printable care guide, two blogs and three videos. And they were all over our website. I explained to this person how they had to navigate to three different pages and then do a keyword search for mangoes to find each of these different resources.

I realized this was not a convenient experience for the guest, and I needed a way to put all my mango resources in one place. I needed landing pages. With a lot of help from my team, we were able to do just that. We now have an alphabetized index of plant information where you can find every one of our resources in one place.

4) Give your resources a shout-out. You can have the very best resources in the world, but if your customers don’t know about them, those resources won’t do them (or you) any good. So in addition to telling customers to get in touch if there are any issues, we’ve come up with a few other ways to make sure our customers are aware of our resources.

• Link to them in your newsletter. Your newsletter is a great way to share your blog, videos and any other resources you have.
• Tell them in your voicemail greeting. Scripting a nod to your online resources into your voicemail greeting is an easy way to help people help themselves.
• Post them on social media. This one is likely obvious, but if you have a blog, make sure you’re linking to it on your social channels every time you release a new one, and then again when the information might be especially useful or relevant. In Florida, we re-post our hurricane and frost preparedness blogs and videos anytime those unfortunate events rear their ugly heads.
• Show them on your own devices. We have free Wi-Fi throughout the gardens so employees can easily show customers how to navigate to the specific resources on our mobile site using their phones. Or better yet, have the guest take out their own smartphone and walk them through it.
• Speaking of devices … all of your customers have them, and thanks to the pandemic, nobody is afraid of QR codes anymore. We can use this to our advantage by making it easy for guests to access plant information right in the sales area where it’s most relevant!
• And if all else fails, we attach a slip to every receipt at checkout to make our customers aware that we are a resource for them.

5) Finally, meet your guests where they are … with your resources ready. I mean this in two different ways. First, you have to meet your guests where they spend their time. Does your target demographic read the newspaper? Try writing press releases and getting educational articles published in your local paper. Do they spend hours a day on TikTok? It’s time to find that viral audio and make it work for you with quick, informative videos.

And second, you have to meet your customer where they are on their gardening journey. Remember that just because something is obvious to you doesn’t mean it’s obvious to your guests. Sharing your knowledge with patience and humility is the best way to ensure the information actually comes across and your guests don’t walk away feeling stupid.

When it comes to gardening, we have the experience and the knowledge. I hope this strategy will help you communicate the quality of your information and firmly establish your IGC as the authority for all things green and growing in the hearts and minds of your customers.